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To: Solon who wrote (29606)	8/12/2012 5:08:32 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 69300

I had the opportunity to interview her about similarities and differences between Virginia and California wines. The full interview will appear in the Spring 2010 issue of Virginia Wine Lover magazine, on newsstands this month, but the editor kindly allowed me to share some of our conversation with you in this column. What do you think when you hear people comparing Virginia wine to California wine? "I always have mixed feelings because the styles are so different. It's like comparing apples to oranges. The California style, because of its climate, is a higher-in-alcohol, higher-in-sugar and lower-acidity level wines. You hear these wines talked about as "jammy" and as "big fruit bombs. "In Virginia, because our climate is different with hotter days and nights, our wines tend to be higher in acidity and more moderate in fruit flavors. They tend to be more Old World in style, leaner, so I think they go better with food. "We always know that if someone tells us their favorite wine is an Australian Shiraz that they are not going to be overwhelmed with Virginia wines. But if they say they love Italian or Spanish or French wines, they will usually embrace and love Virginia wines because they are coming from a comparable palate." Do Virginia wine growers/producers have any advantages over their counterparts in California? "We have less expensive land. Beyond that, we probably have a better tourism base with which to start. If you build a winery nearly anywhere in Virginia, there is a strong network of tourists used to coming to that area. You can only get that in the classic wine regions of California, which is really costly. "So yes, California has incredible weather and makes phenomenal wines, and yes, it's easier to grow grapes in California, but we also have stunning beauty here in the predominant wine areas, along with a network of tourist attractions. You can see Monticello and the Inn at Little Washington and Mount Vernon while visiting wineries. We have this interesting history that doesn't tie directly to the wine industry but the wineries broaden your visit. Plus, we back right up to Washington, D.C., so people can visit Washington and still visit wine country. It's a nice mix." Could Virginia and California ever find themselves in a "Judgment of Paris" situation? What would it take to get there? "Possibly. I think the wine landscape is so much more complicated now than it was 30 years ago. Back then it was France and no one else, so that's all California had to compete against. Today it's the wines of Australia and New Zealand and South America and Eastern Europe and South Africa and all 50 states. There are wines out of China. It's like comparing television 30 years ago when all you had were three networks to today when you have cable. "Given how segmented the market is, though, I think it would be hard to duplicate a "Judgment of Paris" today. Still, I do think that Virginia wines are becoming much more sought after by the innovators in the wine market who are looking for what's next and what's different and who don't want the same thing. I'm starting to hear a lot of undercurrents about Virginia coming along and doing some really interesting things. I don't know if we're at the tipping point yet, but we're close." Debra Gordon is a freelance medical writer who wishes she could make a living just writing about wine. Read more of

To: Solon who wrote (29606)

8/12/2012 5:09:07 PM

From: longnshort

Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 69300

The Judgment of Washington: In Our Wine Tasting, Virginia Shows It Can Compete With France and Napa Valley

Video

'Judgment of Washington' Wine Tasting
Post wine columnist Dave McIntyre invited three retailers and three sommeliers to join him in a blind tasting of a dozen white and a dozen red wines. All the judges knew was that McIntyre was imitating the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris by again pitting the United States against France. What they didn't know what that he was also slipping in five Virginia wines and one from Maryland. Could the local wines compete? Video by Joe Yonan, Edited by Ashley Barnas/The Washington Post
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By Dave McIntyre
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The "Judgment of Paris" transformed the world of wine, marking California on the map in big, bold letters that could not be ignored. That May 1976 tasting galvanized an upstart American wine industry that had struggled in the decades since Prohibition and helped overcome a consumer perception here and abroad that American wines were inferior to their French counterparts.

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The Paris tasting was immortalized in the 2005 book "Judgment of Paris" by George M. Taber and the 2008 movie "Bottle Shock." It has provided a model for countless wine tastings and parties in the decades since, setting the standard that wines should be evaluated based solely on what's in the glass, not on the label.

Where California was in the 1970s -- underappreciated for its quality -- Virginia is today. So when we decided to hold our own Judgment of Washington, it wasn't just to see whether the United States would best France today. It was to see whether local wines might surprise the judges now as much as Napa Valley bottles did more than three decades ago.

We invited six area wine professionals -- three retailers, three sommeliers -- to blind-taste a dozen chardonnays and a dozen red Bordeaux-style wines, telling them only that we were pitting the United States vs. France in a sort of oenological grudge match. Then we slipped in five Virginia wines and one from Maryland without telling anyone.

Could the locals hold their own against the more established competition from Napa Valley, Bordeaux and Burgundy? Could they overcome a market perception that they are expensive novelties that don't offer value to match their price? Or would they fall flat as overreaching pretenders?

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When the scores were totaled and the wines unveiled, a California wine narrowly edged out a French rival for the top spot in each category. But Virginia was nipping at their heels.

"Wow, you're really swinging for the fences right away with this one," John Wabeck said as he sniffed the first red wine. Wabeck, a former chef who is now sommelier at Inox restaurant in Tysons Corner and a third-level master sommelier candidate, scribbled "classic Bordeaux structure . . . merlot-based? . . . cocoa powder" and scored it 90 points out of 100. Elli Benchimol, beverage director for the Stir Food Group, which includes Zola and Potenza restaurants and their affiliated wine stores, also noted cocoa powder and scored the wine 90, lauding its "beautiful structure." Brian Cook, sommelier at Sonoma and Blue Ridge in the District and Redwood in Bethesda, praised its "cured meat, savory cassis, mint, mocha" flavors and its "dusty tannins," awarding the wine 92 points.

The wine was Barboursville Vineyards' 2006 Octagon, a merlot-based blend of Bordeaux grape varieties that retails for about $40. Four of the six judges mistook it for a Bordeaux. Ultimately, the Octagon trailed the Newton Vineyards 2005 Unfiltered Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, a $60 monster that wowed the judges with its unmistakably jammy fruit, velvety texture and spicy complexity. Second place went to Chateau Larrivet-Haut Brion 2005, from the Pessac-Leognan region of Bordeaux, every bit as French as the Newton was American. Like the Octagon, it retails for about $40.

Napa Valley scored points for value, with cabernet sauvignon from Sterling Vineyards ($25) and Beaulieu Vineyard's Rutherford bottling ($20) impressing the judges. But Virginia came in big again, in a fifth-place tie between the Michael Shaps 2007 Cabernet Franc ($35) and the Gordon Brothers 2003 Tradition from Washington state ($45).

California also scored for value with the white wines. Our top finisher -- by a hair -- was the Chappellet 2007 Napa Valley Chardonnay, a $32 charmer that fooled the judges into thinking it was French. Only Vanessa Moore, owner of Unwined retail store in Alexandria, identified it as a Napa wine. (Wine Spectator magazine loved it, too, rating it 91 points, about what our judges gave it.) The Chappellet was in a virtual dead heat with the $50 Louis Latour Chateau de Blagny 2006 Meursault-Blagny Premier Cru. Our judges were unanimous that this was French. Two of them, Dominque Landragin, co-owner of the Cork & Fork stores in Gainesville and Bethesda, and Christian Bonny, wine buyer at Circle Wine & Liquor in Northwest Washington, even guessed the correct appellation. Bonny was so excited about this wine that he got tangled in similes, saying that "it keeps coming around, like a snowball rolling downhill," and after the next sip, "like a ferris wheel of stone fruit and cream."

Right behind the first two, though, came two Virginia chardonnays: Linden Vineyards 2006 Hardscrabble, which retails for about $26, and the Michael Shaps 2007 ($35). Fewer than 1.25 points separated the first four chardonnays, two of them from Virginia. The judges were unanimous in thinking the Shaps was from Burgundy. "Montrachet!" Landragin wrote, while Benchimol, Moore and Wabeck suspected Puligny-Montrachet. The Linden was mistaken for French by three of the judges, while the others suspected the West Coast.

What conclusions can we draw from our exercise? That U.S. wines are the equal of the French is no longer the surprise it was in 1976. Yet it is worth noting that when our judges were asked where they thought a wine was from, they tended to believe the wines they liked most were French. France still holds pride of place in our minds as the benchmark for fine wine.

But we cannot ignore that wines produced within a two-hour drive of Washington stood toe-to-toe with highly touted competitors from California and France. This result is a snapshot of what six judges thought about two dozen wines one July afternoon, yet it should send a signal to retailers, sommeliers and consumers that local wines can match the best in the world -- and they are beginning to do so. It's time to put our preconceptions aside and focus on the quality of these wines.

Dave McIntyre can be reached through his Web site, http://www.dmwineline.com, or at food@washpost.com.